


The Divided Half

by primeideal



Category: Original Work
Genre: Extra Treat, Fictional Religion & Theology, Friendship, Gen, Interspecies Awkwardness, Trick or Treat: Trick, but a humorous one
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-12
Updated: 2017-10-12
Packaged: 2019-01-16 14:21:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,111
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12344397
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/primeideal/pseuds/primeideal
Summary: Eshlann seeks death beyond the dwarf caverns and the orc battlefields. Huzhil seeks a temple to a god beyond the limits of goblin lore.They find each other.





	The Divided Half

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Gileonnen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gileonnen/gifts).



> Thanks to the brainstormers who helped me untangle this plot!

Even if one didn’t speak of such things in polite company, there was no avoiding the fact that Eshlann was terribly large for a dwarf child. At mealtimes she devoured serving after serving, while other children duly contented themselves with single portions as was appropriate to their size. She outgrew her babeclothes thrice as fast as all the other newlings, and her mother Borwim sought to replace them at every conceivable interval. Borwim’s sisters tut-tutted as they weaved baggy garments for Eshlann to be huddled about in, only for the child to tear them as soon as she was old enough to crawl through the mines. Eshlann could swing a shovel before she could spell her name, was taller than her mother before she’d read the classic treatise _That None May Be Shafted: Equitable Labor For All Dwarven Kind_ , and by the time she was old enough to go to work herself...

Well, that was the trouble. She was probably done growing, at least everyone hoped, but she was already too enormous to make it down most of the old mine shafts to see what was being excavated at the far end. Not that she _had_ to go into the mining sector, of course; plenty of dwarves led pleasantly sedentary lives in any given cavern, whether it be toiling for economic justice or cultivating mushroom circles. But already she had fended off so many questions from others— _who is she, to take more than her share?_ —that knowing she was unfit for service in one of the most ancient and traditional craftworks of the cavern was a hard burden to bear.

If anything, it was Borwim who seemed to scoff at the naysayers. “Pay them no mind,” she had said, as Eshlann had grown (and grown and grown). “Tis only your father’s blood in you, nothing more.”

“And he abandoned you, did he?”

“Surely not! He only knew he would not, ah, fit in here always, so he left in search of ventures new.”

“Don’t rinse the dust, mother, you mean he would not fit through the _door_.”

“No matter what they say,” Borwim would ultimately reiterate, “he loved me dearly. And he would love you too, or he would not have left you his sigil.”

The runic rock was, in the view of fashionable modern dwarves, gaudy and ostentatious, or for Eshlann, just large enough to read. She had settled on wearing it under her clothing, close to her heart, to avoid any further attention while reminding her that at least someone had once thought the notion of her surprisingly diminutive, or perhaps better, that she had been no small thing to someone.

“Surely,” Eshlann protested once she was grown, “you do not intend for me to remain here?” She could not, would not, bear the scorn of the others. If looks could kill, the judgment they heaped upon her for her _muchness—_ consuming too much, wearing through too much, collapsing too much if she raised her head to the wrong beam, _being_ too much—could have powered a small army for weeks. (Dwarves, of course, did not much believe in killing, preferring to engage in communal restorative justice and harness energies mineral and metaphorical alike towards higher-priority tasks such as shaft excavation.)

“All I intend,” Borwim said, “is for you to dwell wherever you might find joy.”

Then Eshlann wept for love of her mother and at the sting the parting would bring them both, but already she was turning her face towards the ladders that led beyond the caverns, to the encampments of her father’s people.

“It has been many years since we met, and they move their camps as often as the scent of battle thrills on the winds,” Borwim cautioned her. “You may not find him where we last embraced. But I will draw you up a map, the best I can remember.”

“That’s all I can ask for,” said Eshlann.

And so it was not long before, bearing a map of unknown skies and more overlarge portions that the dwarves looked down at while looking rather far up at, Eshlann departed to seek her legacy and an uncertain future.

Even the legend bore fantastic discoveries of its own. Above ground there was no longer “hubward” or “outward,” but the points of a compass rose beset with a flower Borwim had drawn, roots and petals bridging earth and sky. “West” meant the shadows of the morning and squinting at night, the rough winds and sudden, wondrous, rain. She almost froze in confusion the first time water fell from the sky and did not disturb the landfolk, their brick and wooden houses made secure against the drizzle. “North” meant a rhythm of stars, a fixed pattern of moonlight that came and went and sun so bright it almost hurt her eyes. It was easy enough to avoid it by looking down; she’d made a habit of that.

And all the people! Officious elves, absentminded giants, bemused humans of every size, hurtling by on carts or by foot. Two elves studiously shared a road with her for an evening, each giving her useful directions but firmly refusing to speak to each other once they’d learned that one was from the Dynasty of Tro and the other from the House of Gyu; apparently some slight between elder cousins decades before had fossilized into a proxy war. A human who did not seem to have the least capacity to transform one object into the next tailed her across three and a half bridges (one was out and they had to awkwardly turn back) attempting to barter for a copy of his treatise on alchemy. She finally glared and gave an empty threat to set his parchment aflame with a blink of an eye, which was enough to make him scamper off.

But nothing could compare to the day Eshlann first laid eyes on an orc settlement. Though not marked on her map, it had the look of a somewhat permanent barracks, with housing built for soldiers and several other crude buildings on the outskirts of the camp. A hospital of sorts, perhaps? And a training ground?

And the buildings were gargantuan. Clearly, they had been constructed for denizens who would tower over even _her_ in their ranks, unless they had staircases carved inside. But she dared to hope that there, it would be her who was small and unburdensome.

“Easy there!” barked a gigantic officer of some sort, her insignia a constellation of glories. “You’re too obvious to be a spy and not annoying enough to be some useless anthropologist, so speak up and be about your wits.”

Eshlann brought herself up to her full height. “My name is Eshlann, daughter of Klig Shield-Piercer. I am here to enlist.”

“You?” said another officer. “Enlist?”

“I can carry one of your daggers and I’ll ride the runt-horse of the pack. My father served without fear and so will I.” Maybe that was a lie, she reflected, on both parts. Had Klig feared battle? Was he a deserter out of love, or cowardice?

Well, never mind that. They had not reacted to his name, so he was not a hero or scoundrel of story. Just an orc in full.

“Someone offers you a free sword, better point it outwards,” growled the first officer to the second. “I see no reason she can’t at least train.”

“Reckon aye,” the second conceded, “but we have no time for slouches on the battlefield. I expect a mighty effort from all our recruits or you’ll be shoving trolls for the right to sleep under bridges.”

“Yes,” said Eshlann. “Sir.”

Camp was exhausting. The “sparring” exercises appeared to be a deregulated system of wrestling or duelling others to the mud when the officers had given up attention, and recruits’ study of advanced tactics was limited to “sneakin’ up on ‘em from both sides and hurlin’ stones down at ‘em once we’ve gotten the high ground, eh, and a good stockpile of stones, what.” The first officer, who was named Captain Deeb, loudly encouraged them to “set up a system of chores, and punish those who don’t empty the chamber pot, on account of it’s good for morale,” but nobody seemed inclined to take initiative, and Eshlann was certainly not about to start.

The other orcs called her names, of course: “Halfheart” and “Smallmeat” and “Toydagger.” It was different, though; they called _everyone_ names. Woe betide the unattractive “Scartusk,” who occasionally went by “Nonose” if he was having a good day, and had to curry favor with fearsome sparrers like “Burnshield” or “Mudbreath.” She liked it.

And there was the matter of her mount. It was uncomfortable and she clung on for dear life the first few times. “You tryin’ to choke that thing to death, Halfheart?” muttered the orc next to her.

“You should try smothering yours, Whiptail, it’d do a better job of not fleeing from you in battle,” hollered someone across the way.

Still, she had to admit, it was faster than walking. If you were going to have the sun bearing down on you, might as well use it to take the strain off your feet.

But nothing could prepare them, large or small, for the heat of war. Deeb had ordered them one day to be ready to ride at a moment’s notice and abandon the chore routine nobody kept to anyway, and Burnshield had hooted in a thrill of excitement, but Eshlann nervously kept her dagger at the ready and sent up a prayer that nobody would trample her steed and leave her having to climb on something too large for her. She was not sure whether Traiga, the Goddess of War, took heed of such petitions, but Deeb’s loud chants were so invigorating that Eshlann did not feel too worrisome about calling on Traiga at such an hour.

“We ride,” snapped the other officer she’d met, Sergeant Kuf. Eshlann was not specifically aware what distinguished one sort of officer from another. Half her fellows referred to everyone more senior than them as a “captain” in the absence of a more insulting name.

“Sir?” Whiptail stammered, as their horses followed Kuf’s, scents of dust and sweat trailing them as they rode in panic (when the horses weren’t stopping to relieve themselves).

“What, newbone?” It was hard to remember your fellows’ names when even your commanders didn’t seem to.

“Who, ah, who are we _fighting_?”

“Nang Rot-Cleaver, the traitor, swore she would not ford the fingers of ice again for six seasons!” Deeb interrupted. “But her word is as hollow as an elf skull.”

“No, I mean, her followers, how are we to tell them from each other?”

“They wear blue uniforms, the better to go rotting in lakes,” Deeb explained.

“You can run this newbone through,” Sergeant Kuf suggested, in contrast, “if he’s as useless in the fray as he is here.”

Deeb did not offer any maxims about free swords.

The blue horde came galloping towards them, summerflies in their horses’ shadow. Was their own army as noxious, as foul-stenched? Eshlann tried to suppress any thought of similarity with Nang’s crew, and joined Deeb and scores of unseen voices in clamoring her war-prayer to the skies.

 _Mighty Traiga!_  
_Before I free this my horse,_  
_Lay down this my dagger,_  
_Sit before you at the banquet of victory,_  
_Let my name be sung in fear and wonder._  
_May I send preceding me  
_ _Many enemies! Many enemies! Many enemies!_

She remembered what came next. She wished she did not, wished that the chaos of the day was enough to blot it from her mind. But she knew the fear and the pain as her small horse darted from beneath her and she fought on the ground. The cries of her fellow recruits bellowing in horror as longswords sliced through their tusks. The anger as she dug in, searching for high ground, for any sign that their terrain was under the control of some firm mind and not a muddy free-for-all.

The shock on the face of a bannerorc she caught off-balance, disarming first of the blue emblem, then sword, then striking where his shield was loose over his body.

The disgust a moment later when she saw that she could not know his name, could not discover if or how he would herald her at Traiga’s feast, but that she would have to continue killing all the day, not eating, not sleeping, if she wanted to remain on her feet.

But thanks to the unyielding blades of Eshlann and those allied with her, Nang’s army was pushed back, and Deeb and Kuf’s forces won the day. Those orcs who still had horses underneath them set about making camp; many of them, new and old to combat, were still too giddy with the sense of victory to attend to a routine of chores even then.

“Don’t get too comfortable here,” Deeb warned. “Nang will stop at nothing. She’d even ally with the humans to the east if she thought she could afford it.”

“Aye, we won’t get comfortable without our nightly grog,” Kuf said. He was burning tallies into his sword to indicate numbers of enemies killed. (Orcs were very creative at finding ways to record numbers of enemies killed. In the wars of Cig the Thick-Skull, a dozen different orcs had simultaneously discovered binary notation and mostly wound up killing each other off.)

“Sir. Ma’am.” Eshlann gave a quick salute.

“Oh, you’ll be wanting another trick pony, won’t you?” Kuf groaned.

“Actually, no,” Eshlann said. “I’m here to take my leave.” _If you’ll allow it_ , she almost added, but thought better. If they let her go, good and well, and if they tried to punish her, she would welcome what came.

“Don’t mind him, we’ll replace your equipment,” said Deeb.

Eshlann shook her head _no_. “I’m afraid I’m no true soldier.” _Nor a true orc_. Delighting in the bloodshed of strangers? Sweating and bleeding to bring down those who had no grudge against her? Then drinking grog and counting the days till she could do it again? Where was the justice in that?

“Coward! Waste of a sword! Halfheart and toy—” Kuf began.

“Ah, shut your songtrap, sergeant,” Deeb said. “Not everyone can win valor in their first battle, soldier. Are you sure you will not stay here? The army is often safer than the roads, for a stranger alone.”

“Positively sure,” said Eshlann.

“Then let her go, you fool, before she does us harm in a spat. Be off with you, then, and don’t think you’ll get veteran status for our chamber pots.”

“No, ma’am.”

“And don’t ma’am me, you’re dismissed.”

Relief commingled with dread in Eshlann’s heart as she stepped away from the camp. She had seen war, the skill and scourge of her father’s people, a vision she could not have dreamed of witnessing in the caverns. And she had come to better know herself, realize one more destiny she could not attain.

But she knew in both her peoples there was no past for her, and the winnowing down of futures brought with it bitter truth. So she huddled against the wind as she began a trek to the east, seeking a task that might sustain her for whatever the duration of her life might prove to be.

Before the camp was out of sight, however, she was accosted by a small figure who had paced her from the ashes of Nang’s grounds. With senses grown keener from training, Eshlann whirled on the spot, her dagger (which neither of the officers had thought to confiscate, it being a bit too small for most of their troops) at the ready. “Who goes there?”

“Huzhil I am, sworn to Voa!” The stranger, who seemed to be a woman clad in a silver helmet, knelt before her.

“Are you...” It couldn’t be, not this far from the caverns, but stranger things were possible. “A dwarf?”

“A _dwarf_?” Huzhil stood up, sounding more bemused than offended. “I’m a goblin. Obviously.”

“Oh. _Obviously._ ”

“Dwarves’ eyes are bigger. Need to take more light in. And they pronounce their _d_ ’s more purely, as the scholars say, we have the mountain accent. Moreover—”

Eshlann, who was not particularly captivated by the workings of goblin phonology, was already striding onwards. Huzhil continued behind her.

“Were you with Nang’s army?” Eshlann finally asked, without pausing to look at her.

“Rot-Cleaver! Ah, I was...observing alongside it. But not part of it. I am not fond of warfare, myself.”

“No,” Eshlann said, hesitating briefly, “me neither.”

“Do you have any supplies?” Huzhil asked. “Food, shelter?”

“I’ll be all right,” Eshlann said, which was at least half-true.

“Er. What I meant was, you’re welcome to share mine! I don’t know if you’ll fit my bedrolls exactly, but you’re welcome to what food you’d like.”

Eshlann deliberated. “Are you seeking the human army?”

“Are _you_?”

“I asked you first, goblin.”

“Well, erm. The truth is, I was...tailing you.”

Eshlann looked around. The path she had taken, in the hope of wending east, led near a dry forest. Birds watched from the trees, and ferns lined their path on both sides. Save a band or two of dour trolls in a pretentious theater brigade, they had passed very few people on the road. “This doesn’t come as an earth-rending surprise.”

“I’m sorry! I only wanted to speak to an orc, and the ones in Nang’s camp, they were not very conversational.”

“Well, I’m here. I don’t promise pleasantries.”

“That’s all right. We could, ah, maybe eat dinner first, and then perhaps talk about religion tomorrow?”

“Just my fortune. The first goblin I meet is an insecure proselytizer.”

“I am _not_ ,” said Huzhil. “I have no intention of changing your faith, I trust you are sure in it as I am in my own. I only wish to inquire what you know of the great god Voa.”

“Not a thing,” Eshlann informed her, “so you can save time and take your campstuffs with you if you’d rather.”

“Oh that’s all right! My offer stands, and I’ll keep to my word.”

“Hrrmph,” said Eshlann. “Some loyalty pledge Voa demands of you?”

“No,” Huzhil said. “I don’t think.”

With a roll of her eyes, Eshlann said, “Well, I have strength enough to journey for a while yet. Rest when you will, and I may join you.”

Huzhil led on in silence, and it was not until many scattered stars gave their light that she strode into the forest, Eshlann untiring behind. “Are you sure this is enough of a bedroll?” the goblin fretted.

“It is better than some of the warcamp fabrics,” Eshlann admitted truthfully, though she was in no mood to rate matters of comfort. She found herself wolfing down several bread buns that were, if chilled from the path, not as stale as she’d hoped. “Did you bake these?”

“Oh no. They are shrine offerings.”

“Too tasty to be left for some rite.”

Huzhil gave a small smile, and they went to sleep.

Eshlann awoke first and was tempted to abandon camp, leaving Huzhil behind, but she could not bring herself to pilfer the food, and some portion of her thought that if she remained just a little longer and shared the road, she might be offered a meager breakfast before continuing. Surely that was not too much to accept?

There turned out to be breakfast indeed, a dry meat that Huzhil had packed, and Eshlann conceded it was savory. But what she had not counted on was submitting to another round of interrogations as Huzhil packed up and they made their way east.

“You and your fellows—the army orcs, I mean, did some of them whoop and yell battle prayers?” Huzhil pestered her.

“Yes,” Eshlann said cautiously.

“And unto whom did you sing them?”

“Uh...Traiga. War goddess. Not your fellow.”

“Ah! Yes, of course! I have only seen sketches of her troll-towers, but terrible they were, bedecked with pikes and adorned with skulls. Bold of flesh are the priests of the War Lady.”

Eshlann began to silently ament the loss of her pony once again, for perhaps it could have let her flee the little goblin’s ramblings.

“But nothing you have heard of Voa?”

“If it wasn’t obvious at a first glance,” Eshlann rounded on her, “I did not exactly grow up learning orclore.”

“Do you think I judge by preconceptions?” Huzhil snapped. “I did not make a study of faith to be told I could only swear to some goblin deity.”

“You seem to know more than I do. I don’t know what you need me for.”

“It is the lord of death to whom I am pledged, whose temples go unseen. Many are the texts that tell of the death orcs wield, that his name was great among them in ancient days; I thought that in their camps I might learn where to worship him best.”

“A god of death, eh?” Eshlann gave a laugh in spite of herself. “I intend to die with honor soon enough. If I meet this lord of yours, I’ll mention your name.”

“With honor! So you are a devotee even if you kneel to him not by name. How came you by this quest?”

“I am too large to be a dwarf; I am a waste, a blight below the earth, destroying too much just to sustain my name. And I am too small to be an orc; I cannot abide the waging of war, the wreaking of blood and chaos as if by that I might win valor. Neither in my father’s nor my mother’s house is there a place for me. So I have resolved to go forth and find some purpose for which I may give all my life.”

“Voa could have no finer servant!” Huzhil gasped. “If I may not be blessed to find his temple, let me remain with you, that I may chronicle the life of such a worthy pilgrim.”

“I suppose the extra suffering that is your conversation will make my demise all the more welcome,” said Eshlann. But Huzhil only smiled, and the thought of pausing for lunch at some point did not seem as dismal as the rest of Eshlann’s itinerary.

“I will follow where you lead,” Huzhil said. “But tell me, do you have a reason for this choice of road?”

“I do. If I find some finer path, all the better. Until then, this is as good a way as any, and may lead to where I can carry out my fate.”

“Very well.”

“Do try to stay out of the fray,” Eshlann added. “Unless you receive some divine command to get yourself killed too.”

“Many are the powers of Voa,” Huzhil replied soberly. “But he prizes his children’s freedom, and fain would he order them to change their paths.”

The east road wound away from the forest and continued disappointingly free of deadly traps, toxins, or bandits lurking in wait. It did, however, lead as Eshlann suspected, to the human army—or at least _a_ human army, if not the one Nang had been rumored to seek an alliance with. This military, too, seemed to be a semi-permanent camp, albeit only one of several in the area. It was surrounded by a more sprawling morass of families and vagrants who lacked the resources or willpower to put down roots and were either following the army or slowly migrating on a route that happened to cross.

When Eshlann passed through the soldiers’ tents, she did get double-takes, and flinched inwardly at them. Glancing around, however, she tried to tell herself that most of those were merely from not being human. The humans there were male and female, dark and pale, decorated with nonsense awards and plain-uniformed, but almost all the same proportions. How was she to sort out one worthy candidate from another?

“Has anyone seen a pesky goblin?” she asked. “Only about _that_ high. Keeps going on about the gods.”

“Is he in the ranks?” asked a thin, wiry archer.

“Was he part of the fight for True Prince Pansa?” belched his fat companion.

“Sorry, a she. Was wandering around the market earlier.” That was true. Eshlann had told Huzhil she could go trading if she wanted as long as she didn’t make a fool of herself. On reflection, she wasn’t sure Huzhil knew the meaning of the concept.

“I never minded the gods,” said a shieldwoman. “They bless me with luck at the dice, they do.”

“If we had luck,” said the fat archer, “there would not be so many vagabonds in the mess tents.”

“Do you need someone to go find her?” the shieldwoman asked.

“Not right now,” said Eshlann, “but thank you for the offer. Is there an officer I could speak with?”

“You’ll be wanting Captain Mier,” she nodded, pointing to a tent with a small black banner on it.

Eshlann took note of her and their location, then strode over with a satisfied nod. It had been a useful investigation indeed. Apparently non-humans _could_ enlist, even if some menfolk assumed most of them were men too; plenty of warriors were not happy with the broader state of the camps; there’d been a recent campaign on behalf of “Prince Pansa,” whoever he was; and at least one recruit was warmhearted enough to volunteer to search for a stranger. As importantly, Huzhil hadn’t embarrassed herself yet.

Eshlann lingered outside the tent quietly, there being no good way to knock, and finally cleared her throat. “C’min,” someone called, and she ducked as she clambered through.

Captain Mier was a young man with hair that had gone gray early. “I know it’s a bit unusual,” Eshlann said, “but I was wondering about the terms of enlistment.”

“Ah, well, gold never did care what fingers held it,” Mier said. “We’ve had our share of giants and all. I reckon Captain Wade isn’t all human anyway.”

“Yes. Sir?”

He slid a piece of paper across the table from her full of numbers and terms. It was like dwarven economic theory, she supposed, if she was the only dwarf in the world. Even being, as far as she knew, the only half-dwarf, half-orc in existence, she was not prepared for all the conditions and clauses that swam in front of her.

“May I ask you a question?”

“Of course,” he said.

“Where are we—are you—marching off to next?”

“We’ve been hired to overthrow the so-called Queen Glys of the Violet Ford. Long has the people’s reign of liberty been securely established there until her reign of tyranny, but with our help, true freedom will prevail.”

“Mm,” said Eshlann. “And did I hear tell you are the very warriors who restored the True Prince Pansa to power?”

“That we are,” said Mier. “A force of righteousness whenever the need shall arise. You will find no finer allies than us.”

“Thank you,” said Eshlann. “I—must speak to a friend for a moment, before I sign on.”

“Of course. We do not coerce you, or anyone.”

She stepped back out of the tent, and walked back over to the soldiers she’d met, glancing down at the spearwoman for a brief moment. “Are you all right?” the human asked. “Do you need help finding that goblin?”

“I’m okay,” said Eshlann. “Thanks.”

She continued on to a market crossroads where Huzhil had said she’d meet her. “I suppose this is our farewell?” Huzhil asked.

“I suppose,” Eshlann said quietly, making her way away from the camp. “But it appears I will not be joining these humans.”

“They did not accept you?”

“No, nothing so dreadful. I...had thought I might take the place of one of them. If I could not fight, at least I could lay down my life in battle, and someone with a kind heart might live. That would be honorable, would it not?”

“I suppose,” said Huzhil. “And what, you did not fit their armor?”

“I could not bring myself to join here. The humans do not have the bloodlust of the orcs, true, but their love of gold is strange to fathom. One day they fight to destroy a monarchy, the next to build one up. Surely this would be an unworthy sacrifice!”

“In the books of Zist the Unsatisfied does it not say, ‘all mortals are flawed before the eyes of the gods’?”

“Are you asking me or telling me?”

“Well, I didn’t memorize it. If you’re looking for someone perfect to give your life for, you might have to wait quite some time, that’s all.”

“And here I was thinking the gods thought you perfect.”

Huzhil laughed. “Surely not. But if you find me flawed beyond measure, I’ll vex you no more. I’ve found my own task to carry out.”

“Holier than treading where I walk? Very good.”

“I was bartering in the marketplace and one of the humans had a scroll which is said to lead to the lost ruins of Voa’s sacred temple! Now I have a destination to carry out my duties of priesthood.” She proudly unrolled a scroll inked full of scribblings: a cursory map, runic asides, and a few bits of poetic marginalia.

“You intend to let... _that_ be your map to some old rocks? If they are even there?”

“I could ask for no higher calling.”

Eshlann sighed. “An honorable end I will not find among these humans. I suppose I may as well guard you along your quest, as long as I can. Until I reach a fitting consummation.”

“You? Would stay alongside me?”

“If you wish it not, of course, I will take my leave.”

“No,” said Huzhil quickly. “I would be...honored.”

And so it was that Huzhil and Eshlann began sojourning to the south, in search of a rocky plateau dimly labeled on the scroll. Huzhil hypothesized it was likely to be in the region where orcs had built somewhat of a municipality dozens of generations before, which had since crumbled and been stripped for resources by an unusually industrious giant mining consortium. Taking to elf-navigated rivers would be an indirect route that took them near the giants’ new territory, while the fastest path on paper appeared to be overland, if out of the way.

“ _But where the_ _ragged_ _mountain peak  
__Hides pointed vales_ _, dare not to seek_ ,” Huzhil read. “Now this must be a later emendation, that seems to be warning us away from goblin lands, but those are certainly too far north to consider. Unless you were approaching from the north? In which case why allude to the lakes?”

“It’s your decision,” Eshlann calmly repeated. “I can find somewhere else to go just as well.”

“No, no, don’t bother with the elves,” Huzhil finally decreed. “Besides they wouldn’t necessarily even have _been_ there at the time this was written, who’s to say those river caves didn’t contain other dangers entirely. Overland is safer. Um, with apologies if that’s not to be desired, but—”

“I’ll manage,” Eshlann said, and they proceeded by land.

It was not any hardship of the terrain that had them making camp for a day or two longer than expected, however, despite Huzhil’s curiosity. Eshlann’s tusks began to sear with an excruciating pain, and the thought of eating road rations, no matter how grateful she felt for Huzhil’s planning, felt unbearable. The sun’s light tormented her, and she yearned for the darkness of the caverns. “My flesh has not mocked me so since I was young and could lie abed,” she confessed, as Huzhil insisted it was no trouble remaining in camp, and it would be good to try analyzing the scansion of some of the map notes anyway. “I know no herb that can numb the pain short of waiting for sleep to claim me, but at least below earth I could send away the lanterns that surrounded me.”

“Tuskflame?” Huzhil asked. “Several of the warriors of fighting age at Nang’s camp moaned of it. It is not a malady to be shamed of. Though a pity that it should befall...anyone, of course. Soldier or civilian.”

Had she veered away from saying _even a mere half-orc_? Eshlann could not tell, and did not want to open her eyes, but appreciated the possibility in any event. “What did they do to relieve the pain?”

“Each other, mainly.”

“Does _that_ help?”

“I don’t know how. I suppose it’s a distraction, anyway. I think if you can swallow, the roots of river-wort might be more useful.”

Eshlann groaned. “I won’t chance it.”

By nightfall she had found the strength to sit up, and Huzhil had excitably gathered several roots, before discarding most of them in the acknowledgment that she had studied little in the medicinal field and remembered less. It did not stop her from invoking a healing deity and assuring Eshlann that tuskflame almost never proved fatal. “Apologies if that’s a disappointment.”

Eshlann managed a shrug. “I’d welcome a long sleep to end this pain, selfish as it may be, but I was expecting one of temporary duration. Being brought low by such agony as this brings about nothing and only holds you back.”

“Oh it’s quite all right,” Huzhil insisted. “It’s good to know where to find stoutbark root! And I think I’ve made progress on interpreting the meter, here...”

While her tusks occasionally ached the next day, Eshlann could still eat and was content to take to the road rather than remain in camp and listen to Huzhil’s poetic analysis there. They crossed dry prairies, the nights growing cooler as they ventured south, and their nighttime companions turned from insects who craved warm blood to scavenging birds who sought cool bones. “Someday,” Eshlann waved to them, “you may feed on me all you wish, and I may be of good use to someone. But not yet, little friends.”

“Ah, you’re of plenty good use already,” Huzhil said, “you’ve kept me quite safe from dangers on the road!”

“That’s because there’s no one on the road.”

“You scared off that elf duellist!”

“I think that was you scaring him off with your preaching.”

“I wasn’t preaching.”

“He didn’t give you a chance, he fled.”

Traffic picked up outside a trade outpost, and both of them were relieved to get a fresh meal and a night of bed rest in a bar. The staff was mainly human, and a human woman played melodies on a horn, for the sheer pleasure of it. From Eshlann’s experience, dwarf music consisted mainly of repetitive ditties around the hearth after many hops, or avant-garde notes in whispering halls that were not too loud as to echo into other mines, while orc tunes were blasting calls to war, or the chanting prayers to Traiga. She’d liked those, but there were so _many_ of the bar tunes. And even Huzhil, who seemed to have a much more expansive knowledge of above-land music, could not take her eyes off the human.

“It’s beautiful,” Eshlann said.

“She is very…” Huzhil trailed off. “Practical.”

“Practical?”

“That is...I mean...So many of these performers will try to make fools of themselves on the fiddle or the drums and insist on singing along as well when their voices are dreadful banes. She not only knows the music, she knows herself! To know what she is best at, and to do it, why, that is something most marvelous.”

Eventually the horn player took a break, and some of the human patrons took the opportunity to order refills, while others shouted out nonsense phrases that Huzhil explained were the names of songs they wanted to hear next. The human paced around the bar, and Huzhil waved her over. “Your...instrument is inspired,” she began.

“Thank you!”

“May I know the name of the artist who creates such wonders?”

“You do me honor. I am Kesse.”

“Well met, Kesse. I am Huzhil, and I am questing to find the lost temple of the god Voa. It would be a great honor to have you accompany me in my journey.”

Kesse blushed. “I truly thank you for your offer, but I fear I must remain here. My love, Anthorn, was lost at sea, and I must wait for him a twelvemonth and a day.”

“Oh,” Huzhil said. “Forgive me. Please, accept my condolences.”

“It is well,” she said. “My music and my community sustain me at this hour.”

Eshlann nodded. “I am Eshlann, Huzhil’s guardian and friend. Your bravery is clear to see.”

Kesse glanced down. “My heart has weathered many storms. Before I met Anthorn, I did love Nashen, who also disappeared across the waters. I mourned him a twelvemonth and a day before looking forward.”

“I see,” said Huzhil.

“And before him, my first love was Riul, who was drowned in the fingers of ice. I grieved him as was his due.”

“Truly, you have lamentable fortune.”

“So you see, perhaps you ought not pity the fact that I cannot search for your temple with you. But I hope you discover all you seek.”

Huzhil nodded. “Thank you.” The guests climbed up to their quarters, Huzhil retreating into a sulk. “Musicians. Brilliant, but fickle.”

“I thought priests were sworn to celibacy or something like that?” Eshlann asked.

“Where’d you hear _that_?”

“Probably a book,” Eshlann said sheepishly.

“I don’t actually know all the initiation rites for pledging to one of the very popular gods. If you want to serve Liwa, goddess of the sun, or Nimu, god of doors, or someone powerful like that, there’s always more servants than they know what to do with. Maybe they have some extra terms and conditions to narrow it down. But Voa...few are they who truly seek to know the god of death. That’s select enough.”

“I never thought of it like that,” said Eshlann. “Did you say god of _doors_?”

“Sure. Every house has a door, doesn’t it? Sometimes lots. Need someone to look over your going out and coming in, don’t you?”

“I wouldn’t really say that I _need_ one, but if that’s how you think about it...”

“If you consider all thresholds literal and metaphorical alike, he’s got a very nice cult going.”

“Suppose I should call upon it,” Eshlann said, reaching her room for the night.

“He likes graffiti messages,” Huzhil informed her. “Also, have you considered childbirth?”

“There’s a god for that too?”

“Goddess, but I mean, as something to die of? Painful, occasionally fatal, and can’t say it’s not honorable, you’re bringing another person into the world.”

“Another half-heart like me who’ll have nowhere to fit either?”

“Suppose it could be a quarter-something depending on how you go about it.”

“I’ll pass, thanks.”

They left town the next day, supplies newly restocked, and began angling south once more. “Can I ask you a question?” Huzhil asked as they took to the road.

“If it has nothing to do with the pantheon, yes.”

“Are we friends, or did you just say that not to make Kesse jealous?”

Eshlann paused. “Both.”

“Thank you. For trying not to make Kesse jealous. And for being my friend.”

“I might be a bit brusque at times. I’m not used to making lots of friends, so this is how I treat them all.”

“I understand.”

“What’s your real question?”

“That was my question.”

“You didn’t have a question about the pantheon and had to make something up at the last minute?”

“No. I can make one up now if you’d like.”

“That’s all right.”

“I reckoned.”

Their fellow-travelers south of the outpost bundled deeper against the cold, wearing furskins of animals that had never crept into the dwarf mines and eventually turning to follow large signs to giants’ dwellings. Finally, they reached the point where the only road that continued south was not marked on any map, and seemed to twist and turn more than Huzhil liked. “We want to cut directly southeast. It could be icy, but I think that’s the fastest way.”

“Not that I’m bothered.”

Ice in the south was not like icicles in the caves, dangling stalactites or stalagmites that changed with the seasons, but sheets of sheer thin undrinkable water that made travelers lose their footing. And it came with snow, which was like rain, but soft and littered the ground in piles. “I read books about this,” Eshlann complained. “I thought it was a...toy, for little goblin children. Aren’t you always supposed to be playing in the snow? This is an entrapment!”

“And you call _our_ texts ideological?”

The other thing that ice did was cover entire lakes, turning them from circles of water that had to be detoured around into smooth surfaces that, depending on the season, could be spanned on foot. “I don’t know if this can hold our weight,” Huzhil said one twilight, “but there are fires on the other side, and if we can’t make it there by dusk, it’s a long walk around in the forests.”

“It’s up to you,” said Eshlann for what felt like the thousandth time.

Huzhil thought it over, ill at ease. “I’ll go first,” she finally said, “meaning no disrespect, I’m lighter than you. If it doesn’t hold, we turn back.”

“You’re not scared of whoever’s lit those fires?”

“Of course not. Not with you here, at any rate.”

So Huzhil tested the ice, finding the first step secure under her feet. “Right. Let’s go.”

Eshlann quickly followed, and Huzhil stepped delicately one step ahead, than another, Eshlann in her shadow. “Hurry it up! The sooner you move the sooner we’ll be done.”

“Don’t _run_ , that only stresses it more.”

Huzhil tentative, Eshlann urgent, they continued to push forward. They were past halfway when Huzhil stepped forward again, and that time, the ice gave way beneath her.

Eshlann didn’t hesitate. Finally, a cause and a circumstance worth dying for. Hurling her bag of supplies forward, she dove down and lunged for Huzhil, grasping the goblin and shoving her to the ice. The water was frigid where Eshlann had plunged in, but as she grappled, she found her foot making contact with something unexpected. Seaweed?

“What are you doing?” Huzhil yelled, crawling forward and approaching the supply bag.

“Msngpbrg!” Eshlann yelled, her hands beating at the floe.

“What?” Huzhil yelled, still not daring to stand.

“I said, I’m standing upright!” Eshlann roared. The chill seeped through her clothing, but the enormous “lake,” while treacherous for a goblin, was still shallow enough for a half-orc to reach the bottom.

“You’re an idiot,” said Huzhil. “Let’s get to shore.”

The campers on the south side were by and large young, slightly inebriated giants who were good-natured about sharing their fire but didn’t exactly understand why the saga was so amusing or frustrating, even after an exasperated Huzhil had repeated it for the third time. She insisted that Eshlann hang up her drenched clothes near the fire “and if they catch on fire you’re not to risk yourself again putting them out.”

By the time the giants’ carousing had died down, they were still awake, finding it difficult to rest after the anxious crossing. Eshlann was singing softly to herself:

 _Mighty Traiga!_  
_Before I free this my soul,_  
_Lay down this my body,_  
_Sit before you at the banquet of victory,_  
_Let my name be sung in joy and wonder._  
_May I see following me  
_ _Any friend! Any friend! Any friend!_

“Is that a prayer from Deeb’s army?” Huzhil asked. She’d already dried out the remaining supplies enough to start taking notes.

“Sort of,” said Eshlann. “It changed.”

“I have a question. If you don’t mind.”

“I don’t,” said Eshlann. “Even if it’s about the gods.”

“It’s...sort of. I don’t know.”

“Go ahead.”

“I’m...glad to see you alive, of course. But if you yourself would rather not be, why do you still live? Surely you have the wherewithal to...expedite your death, if you’d rather.”

Eshlann glanced over at the fire. “Perhaps my grasp of the theology is wrong, as a latecomer, but what I gathered from Deeb and the rest is that any orc who had shed blood in Traiga’s name would, when their days came to an end, be gathered to her hall to enjoy the riches of endless victory. No matter how they perished here.”

“Yes?”

“Some days I have faith in this promise, other times I doubt more. But in any event, if this joy is what awaits me, surely I would lack honor if I were to claim it now, rather than wait until my suffering here is complete.”

“I see.”

“If I can obtain honor by dying in the service of something great, that is well. But dying for the sake of death is no pride at all.”

“Well, I am no orc, nor have I shed blood in Traiga’s name, so I shall miss you after your departure, whenever it shall be.”

“Ah!” said Eshlann. “Did you not hear the trust of _boundless victory_? _”_

“To be sure...”

“Well, a paradise would be finite and bounded poorly if I could not share it with you, my friend. I know not if there is a heaven for those like me, but if there is, I will await you there.”

Huzhil smiled, and their spirits were warmed as were their bodies.

After thanking the exhausted giants for their campsite, they continued to climb on rocky terrain. “We have to be getting close now,” Huzhil said. “These look like orc battlefields.”

“How can you tell? Most everything could be an orc battlefield if you wait long enough.”

Huzhil paused at more and more flatlands to inspect what giants had carted away, then on a whim moved onto the next plateau. Then she bent down at her map. “ _Between four stumps, a shadow cast/On tower walls sheds light at last_. The towers would have been...right _here_.”

“Can I help?” Eshlann asked.

“Keep an eye out for any rubble, anything that doesn’t look like natural stone.”

They scoured the ground, poking through generations of detritus, until Eshlann came across a brick. “Something like this?”

“Yes. It’s...engraved, and this is...orc script. Centuries old. There’s genealogies of old war-lords that look like this...”

“That’s good. Right?”

“Terrible,” Huzhil raged, clenching the brick as if trying not to drop and shatter it. “This is a municipal building. Sacred buildings used runes, some kind of interspecies script so priests of all sorts could worship together.”

“Are you sure? Should we keep looking?”

“No. Map’s probably a hoax intended to scam adventurers. Or someone just didn’t know what they’d happened across. Useless. All of it, useless.”

“I’m sorry,” said Eshlann, not sure what best to say. “You can still worship your god, though, can’t you?”

“Yes,” Huzhil said glumly. “I still wanted to discover something, though.”

Eshlann nodded. “I’m glad we got to journey together.”

Huzhil glared at her. “I propose to barter with you.”

“Barter? What do you have to offer, a worthless map?”

“I’ll abandon my failed quest, if you abandon yours.”

“My failed quest? I don’t have a failed quest.”

“Oh, yes you do,” said Huzhil. “You’ve failed at dying.”

“Not yet I haven’t.”

“Well, you haven’t won any honor either. Not heroically rushing to defend me from the archers who turned out to be reenactors of the Battle of Earl’s Blossom—”

“They were aiming blindly!”

“Not rushing into a burning building to save a rare songbird, which turned out to be the elf mayor’s jewel-clock—”

“He paid me well for that clock, we ate nicely in that town!”

“Nor taste-testing the notorious heretic’s food prior to her trial.”

“Some of that was rancid.”

“I told myself my motives were pure, and truly they were faithful. But perhaps I was also driven by the desire to make a name for myself, and that is why I fell short. Could it be that you also sought mortal glory, and that is why your quest cannot be? Voa is kind and may reward you after a long life here in this realm, but I would not see you waste the chance to enjoy what is beautiful here—music and good food and friendship and even snow—before you taste of what is blessed in the next world.”

Eshlann paused. “And you will stop pretending you know how to haggle for maps?”

“Of course.”

“But where can I go? Even without death, I still have nothing to live for.”

“We are still friends, yes? I will return to the goblin mountains for a time, find another place where I might worship best. You would be welcome to come visit with me. Stay as long as you like.”

“I would like that,” said Eshlann. “I would invite you in return, but I suspect if you speak of peace again you will get kicked out from among the orcs, and speak of faith you will get shunned by the dwarves. It is not as easy to live together as you think.”

“Your mother and father? Did they not care for each other?”

“They found it hard to find a place to _dwell_ together.”

“And yet they must have tried,” Huzhil pointed out. “The species are not so different, you see.”

She plotted a course north that, for both their sakes, avoided crossing any lakes. “It is much warmer in the foothills, but where we are in the mountains, there is snow up high. Only a few caves, nothing like yours.”

“How do you know?” Eshlann teased.

“Books,” Huzhil joked, and they both laughed. “Perhaps you will have to show me.”

They kept to larger paths that time, and passed many others who they regarded without flinching; it was not an occasion to fear. There were humans on horses in some sort of a race, and a goblin delivering messages to giants down south. A pair of elves actually sought out Huzhil’s scholarly expertise for marriage etiquette; when a farmer wed a cobbler, was it against the will of the fertility goddess to give them a crib if they had not spoke of having children, or merely tactless? (Huzhil thought that the fertility goddess had a great capacity for both love and forgiveness.)

But then the day came when, drawing near the hills, they encountered maybe a dozen goblins. The leader of the gang wielded what for him qualified as a broadsword. “Hand over what you’ve got, then,” he demanded.

“Easy there,” Huzhil said, raising her hands and scurrying through her bag. There was not much left in the way of coins, as they’d traded mostly for food along the way. “Here.”

“C’mon, don’t get smart with us.”

“That’s it, that’s what we’ve got.”

“And you?” Another rounded on Eshlann. She quickly emptied her bag, revealing just Huzhil’s notes. “Bunch of useless books, huh.”

“Let’s get moving,” muttered a third near the back.

“Shuddup,” said the second.

The first held Huzhil at swordpoint. “What do you have?”

“Food,” she stammered, “food, take it.”

“Stale rolls and roadmeat,” summarized another, kicking the supplies to the side.

The second accosted Eshlann, raising his sword to nearly threaten her neck. “What’s that you’re wearing, some kinda gem?”

“No,” she rushed, “I’ve got nothing...”

“If it’s a nothing take it out and let us see.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Quit stalling, idiot!” Straining himself, he reached up and yanked on the cord that Eshlann had taken for granted. It swung forward and she pulled it in front of her.

“That’s my father’s,” she said.

“Well, uh...” The first one peered over, finding it disappointingly non-metallic, and said, “Ah, give it here anyway.”

Eshlann froze, then saw him tighten the grip on the sword at Huzhil’s throat, and slowly reached to take it off.

“Eshlann, wait!” Huzhil called, and another goblin slapped her.

Nothing else mattered then; not their number or size or species, if they were daring to attack Huzhil while she was surrendering. Ignoring the necklace, Eshlann instead bent and grasped her dagger.

With a backhand strike, she sent the goblin nearest her flying. The next approached her head-on, and was rewarded with a slash to the chest. Huzhil got loose, and ducked to the ground, rolling for the book bags.

“Run!” Eshlann yelled, felling another goblin and fending off a fourth, who had scratched her legs and was shooed away before she could crane to reach Eshlann’s arms.

“When you let me follow,” Huzhil cried. In response, Eshlann tussled with another goblin who was stabbing at her legs.

On they came, convinced that their petty road-banditry and numerical advantage would easily overwhelm Eshlann, but even as her limbs faltered her dagger sliced through foe after foe. No one considered flight. The hills were open, and pursuit would be easy to give by those who endured.

Eshlann hardly needed to run, so it was difficult to tell when she lost a step of pace. A lurch, a stumble, and still she remained on her feet. Still the goblins poured forward, feeling confident, and not without cause, that she had to be more vulnerable. Yearning for vengeance, they climbed over their comrades’ bodies to deal Eshlann ever-deeper wounds, and still she pounded them into the path.

She turned, flailing, off-balance, and saw nobody left to attack. Only Huzhil, creeping up slowly. “I’m sorry,” she panted, “I couldn’t help...”

“’sallright,” Eshlann waved. Huzhil reached out to grab her teetering hand, helping her sit.

“Tilt your legs up, helps the bleeding...” she began.

Eshlann ignored her, fumbling for her necklace. “Take this,” she urged. “Can you read it?”

“Runes. Yes, er.”

“Please,” Eshlann winced.

Huzhill knelt down as she clutched the large runestone. “ _The temples of Shii may be_ _built_ _wherever mountains rise high above the earth._  
_The temples of Rurik may be built wherever a fortunate harvest has been gleaned.  
__But the temples of Voa, they are found in no earthly house, but wherever his children lie at rest and sing his name._ ”

Eshlann gave a nod, her eyes drifting closed. “Thank you.”

“No,” said Huzhil, squeezing Eshlann’s hand around the necklace. “thank _you—_ Eshlann—”

So ended the living days of Eshlann, called Rune-Bearer and Hill-Martyr and Fullheart and many other names by the faithful. But the first and most faithful chronicle of her death and life, the scholars acclaim, is that which inaugurated Huzhil’s library. “For,” she would say, “if Voa would have no temple to his name, let pilgrims congregate where they might learn the songs of the holy.” And ever since then have they echoed, from the mountains even unto the caverns below.


End file.
